Like Paper Houses
by exDerelict
Summary: "So your sister hates your wife...there are worse things in life than that." It was something that was never supposed to happen between them, but once it did the damage was irreversible...A fragmented story about a dying marriage, an affair, and the people caught up in a love triangle. {Elsanna} ModernAU
1. Husband

_**Husband**_

"Yes," she whispered, pulling back the unfastened strands of hair that feathered over her face, hiding the quiver in her fingers as she neatly tucked them behind her ear. Her hands shook as she crossed her arms over her chest, and she stiffly shifted her weight for a semblance of composure. It was almost comical given the white bedsheet firmly wrapped around her naked body, draping to the floor, and the disheveled pale blonde hair that cascaded in ripples down her shoulders.

"Yes?" He echoed. He did not expect the crack in his voice or the tightness that encircled his throat. Tension spread across his chest and squeezed at his insides, pitting his stomach against the eggs and bacon he'd had for breakfast.

It wasn't the answer he hoped for.

"You're confused." It wouldn't be the first time. He had to believe that. But the crushing feeling inside his chest had not ebbed. And he remembered their bodies, naked and tangled, his labored breaths and desperate thrusts as he sought his release and longed for hers. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, almost painfully so when he finally went limp inside her. She never uttered a sound, not even after their bodies came unjoined. Then this morning, leaning in to kiss her lips, the slight cold turn of her head, only to graze the corners of her mouth. He realized it had not been the first time.

"I'm not. Not anymore." There was a tremble in her voice that did not match the resolute look in her azure eyes. She cast an disquieted glance to their bedroom, the door slightly ajar. "But you still haven't asked—" she paused. "I know how this seems. And you're not wrong, but it's also not—"

He heard a strangled sob from their bedroom through the opened crack, and every muscle in his body tensed. They both turned to look. The door clicked shut, and he clenched his jaw. He caught her eyes as he turned back to face her, and he could see the panic and shame in them. She was afraid of him. And afraid for what lay beyond that door.

For the intruder that had fractured their lives.

 _Ten years_ , he thought, the anger billowing in his eyes. He remembered tentative glances. Their sweaty palms as they held hands in school hallways, the awkward first kiss as their teeth clanked, the first night making love under the stars in the back seat of his father's car. It was all ending.

" _My sister! My baby sister!_ " He screamed, pointing to their bedroom, his arm shaking and his face burning a seething red. In that moment he couldn't love and hate her more. Why he still loved her, he wasn't sure, but his hands ached to latch onto her throat and squeeze the breath out of her.

"I know," she sobbed, pressing a hand against the wall as her enervating legs threatened to collapse beneath her. "I'm awful and weak. I didn't mean for any of this. _Please, don't take it out on her._ "

The bedsheet inched down her chest, unveiling a bright red bruise on the inner swell of her breast. That's when he took in just how swollen her lips were and how flushed and pink her skin was. The glistening glow of sex radiating off of her like an animal in heat. Minutes before she had been calling out someone else's name, enjoying someone else's touch in a way that she never had with him. She never craved him like he craved her.

"Elsa," he began to say, but her name caught in his throat, and evaporated into thin air. _She never loved me._

He left.

The screen door slapped shut loudly behind him as he fumbled through his pockets for his keys. He could barely see under the tears that welled in his eyes. He could hear her now, the creek of the door as the intruder made her way out of the bedroom, her feet slapping on the wooden floors. And likely running into his wife's arms.

She wasn't always an intruder. Once, she was the little girl that used to wrap her arms around his neck and beg him to tell her stories; the girl who used to cover for him when their parents caught him in a lie, and who used to give him skittles when he was feeling sick, but only the green ones. And she'd beg him time and again to read her Anne of Green Gables.

 _"Why do you like that silly book so much?"_

 _"It's not silly!"_

 _"Fine, it's not silly."_

 _"Don't you think she's just so amazing?"_

 _"Amazing how?"_

 _"She's not afraid to speak her mind, or afraid to be like one of the boys. She's so brave."_

 _"And stubborn. Just like another feisty redhead I know."_

 _Anna laughed, the kind of childish laugh that chimes like a string of tiny bells. Her small fingers clasped the book to her chest, and he couldn't imagine his little sister ever being anything other than a boisterous child._

Except now she wasn't so little anymore. Not after what he'd seen. Her head of tousled red hair buried between _her_ thighs, hands touching where they shouldn't. _With my wife._

She was behind him now, her hands pressed against the screen mesh of the door that divided them, her breath disparate and rattled. And he remembered nights more than a decade ago, her small body trembling and wheezing, ravaged by fevers and chronic illness. Little hands that clung to him in the darkness.

"Kristoff, please don't tell dad," his sister called out through the screen door, the desperation unmistakable in her voice. But it wasn't the voice of a child, it was a stranger. A woman who had taken her place.

He burst into a hollow laugh and dropped his keys. When he squatted down to pick them up, he stayed there. Watching as his tears splashed onto the concrete.

* * *

A/N: Chapter one of six. To be continued in the next chapter, "Wife."


	2. Wife

Wife

"What if I am?" She snapped back defiantly as she leaned forward, her chin slightly raised and her hands firmly gripping the edge of the washing machine where she sat even as her bare legs swung listlessly over the washer door.

At almost twenty she still had the gangly arms of a pubescent girl, and a slender boyish figure that often came with youth. Her freckled, sun-kissed rosy cheeks and brilliant blue eyes were like a homage to rustic feminine beauty. She had always been this lovely, even as a child, and was made only lovelier by the messy twin braids that fell over her shoulders. The fiery hues of her hair only a shade lighter than red. But for all her loveliness, the girl walked a fine line between open hostility and sullen civility.

Especially to _her._

"You're not," the wife insisted, but it was a tepid reply. There was nearly a ten year difference between them, and yet experience had not given Elsa the confidence that was lacking in her voice. She seemed unconvinced of her own words when she spoke, her restless hands fidgeting with her husband's laundered shirt. Her denial nothing more than a thin veil over her unyielding fears. Fears had that festered since that day she professed her vows before an entire congregation.

"Well, I think you're afraid."

Her husband's sister was sitting closer to the edge of the washer now, a tiny smirk curled up at the corner of her lips, the intrepid look in her eyes shimmering with something like accusation and smug satisfaction. It was the same sort of look that seven-year-old Anna had often reserved for her whenever the child stole away her brother's attentions from his _undeserving_ girlfriend.

Anna and her anger. She clung onto it the way a newborn fastens to its mother. The remnants of a vestigial, and likely imagined betrayal long forgotten, with the same ferocity of a cornered animal. As the girlfriend, she understood she was an outsider. As a wife, she was constantly seeking out her patience, especially as the girl became less of a child.

" _I see right through you," a thirteen-year-old Anna had declared away from the prying eyes of others, practically hissing her words, and her face twisted in vexation. Nevermind that they were in the middle of celebrating hers and Kristoff's engagement party. "You're a fraud, and a phony."_

" _Am I a fake too?" It had taken all of Elsa's efforts not to submit to the haughty derision simmering beneath her stilted smile._

" _You're making fun of me."_

" _Is that why you hate me so much? Because you think I'm a phony?"_

" _My brother thinks you're so perfect-"_

" _I'm not perfect."_

" _I know you're not. You're a master pretender, and you have everyone fooled. But not me." So dramatic. Her disdain was practically palpable._

 _And always, always so angry._

She was more subtle now, virulent but coy, like caustic words on rose-scented parchment. The steel of her cool blue eyes lured her into an almost fervid temptation, a path almost certainly laden with thorns.

There was no discernable difference from the acerbic girl before her now, and the one whose lips she'd tasted just a week before. Supple lips, tart and tangy lips, the bittersweetness juxtaposed by crushing mouths, and warring truculent tongues impassioned by unspoken indignation. The moment had been fleeting, but it had left her agitated and stupefied by the evocative dissonance that swelled her thoughts.

She _was_ afraid, and no words would form on her lips to articulate otherwise. Her own body rejected the denial of this very fact.

"I'm not wrong, am I?" Anna persisted, leaning forward with ease, despite how dangerously close she was to slipping off the edge of the washer. She was near enough to touch, and Elsa was left with strange nascent stirrings as Anna reached an unprovoked hand and tugged at the hem of Elsa's shirt.

Her first instinct was to back away, but something in her brain had shut down, and her limbs became useless and inert to her own commands. Another easy tug from Anna, and her limbs were innervated once more, compelling her forward, and negating the space between them.

"You're so easy to read," her sister-in-law nearly whispered, the heat of her breath teasing the short hairs on Elsa's neck, just below the hairline. Her ears tingled and her florid cheeks grew hot, deepening to a near ruddy red. Anger and embarrassment filled her, clenching her jaw and tensing the muscles in her arms and shoulders. It was only when she tightened her hands into trembling fists that she noticed they were now empty, and Kristoff's shirt lay tracked on the floor, crumpled under her feet.

"You're such a brat, you know that?" They were the first honest words that had crossed her lips since the impulsive kiss they'd shared.

"Is that so?" Anna simpered, sliding a hand up Elsa's arm, tracing fingers along the veins, and stopping at the soft crease of her elbow. "Is that what you were thinking when you had your tongue in my mouth?"

"Don't do that," she croaked, her throat growing arid and tight.

"Don't do what?" Anna replied with feigned innocence.

"Whatever this is."

Elsa's arms were trembling now, her fingers aching as she clenched her fists, as if the act alone would fetter her diminishing resolve.

"And just what is it that I'm doing?" Anna pressed on, running the tips of her fingers along the waistband of Elsa's jeans, and teasing the soft area of her stomach just above the fastened button. "Am I making you wet?"

With those words, her mind emptied all cogent thoughts, and her impetuous hands reached for Anna's thighs, clasping possessively as they tugged forward, seemingly acting independent of her own intentions. But she _wanted_ Anna's legs sealed around her hips, and her body pressed against her own. Anna seemed to want it too. There wasn't a vestige of hesitation when she coiled her legs around Elsa's waist and clasped her fingers on her bare shoulders.

Conjoined as they were from the waist up, their lips remained just breaths apart. Anna's contentious eyes locked with hers, her gaze suffused with an efflorescent charge, enthralling and licentious, and baiting her to submit to the very thing Elsa had wanted to avoid.

And she did.

Their lips came together, drawn in by the gravitational pull of their incensed bodies. Elsa's hands shifted up Anna's thighs, curving along the rounded cheeks of her backside, flexing her tremulous fingers on the firm flesh as her tongue sought out the deepest places of Anna's ravenous mouth. Her tongue pressed deeper still, twisting and curling around Anna's, siphoning a soft groan of ecstasy. She was dimly aware of the hardened nipples teasing her own, just two thin layers away from skin to skin contact. And her shoulders aching; a soft gasp escaping her as Anna's hands clawed impatiently, digging fingernails into soft bare skin.

The laundry room swelled with sounds of their wet lips coming together and apart; moist smacks of tongues and mouths, and the rustle of fabric tousled by restless hands. In their frenzy, the struggle for air became unbearable, and their earnest lips eased into soft, languid kisses.

Anna's arms draped over Elsa's shoulders, her fingers caressing the wisps of hairs along the nape of her neck, enclosing her in a tender embrace. Their eyes fluttered open just enough to remain entranced, but their breaths grew strained as hips stirred, rocking in slow, rousing rhythms, and igniting a deeper longing. It was easy enough to ignore at first, but the tempo of their hips deepened, sweeping her into an aching sweetness of heady intoxication. Within moments, her sex spasmed, and she tensed, pulling Anna flush against her, her hands clutching and trembling as she buried her face in Anna's sweat-glistened neck.

"I'm a terrible person, aren't I?" Elsa rasped above a whisper, nearing tears, and reluctant to pull away. Unable to face the look of contempt awaiting her even as she wondered why those scornful blue eyes made her so weak.

"The worst," Anna asserted cruelly, still struggling to catch her breath, but making no effort to pull out of their embrace. And then in a strangled voice she uttered, "But so am I."

* * *

 _A/N: To be continued in the next chapter, "Lover." I might also add a couple more chapters to the intended three. Feedback is welcome._


	3. Lover

Lover

"Just what is it that you think you'll find?" He asked her in arrant indifference, more for the sake of asking than for the need of any actual reply. If she noticed, she didn't show it.

"Keep the light steady," she uttered absently, a drop of sweat trickling down her forehead and catching on her brow as she tightened the final nut on the telescope. He inched the flashlight closer, his attentions suddenly arrested by the provocative luminescence of her face and the soft breeze that fluttered strands of her hair over her eyes.

"I don't know," she answered, her response so delayed that he'd already forgotten the question. "Maybe nothing, possibly everything."

~X~

She used to count the stars, lying supine on the flat roof that extended beyond her bedroom window. It was forbidden to her, and she had endured more than a few scoldings for stealing off onto the rooftop, but she was undaunted; determined to find her answers in the infinite night sky. The child always began her count from Polaris, making her way along the handle of the little dipper, then down to the saucepan of its more prominent twin, tracing a path from one asterism to the next.

Kristoff had taught her all about the stars as they lay side by side on that rooftop, spinning tales about the sparkling clusters that Anna would never find in any constellation book. Within those stories he planted seedlings of magic and destiny, and from them sprouted a longing for love. The kind of love that drove people to hell and back, and condemned star-crossed lovers to the eternity of the night sky, their passions burning on that dark canvass like a whispered secret.

And Elsa had gleamed much like those stars.

The first time they met, Anna hid behind her brother's muscled back, clutching his shirt as she peered shyly at the girl with the silvery blonde hair and the shimmering azure eyes. Her studded earrings and silver bracelets glittered in the sunlight, and it appeared as if a soft white glow sheened off her fair skin.

She was Kristoff's classmate back then, long before words like _girlfriend_ and _wife_ had painted them into little corners. And Anna was the guarded little sister who only knew to impose herself on the generosity of her doting brother.

 _"_ _You have such pretty hair," the older pretty girl told her, a honey sweet smile on her lips. "Braids really suit you."_

 _Anna pulled harder on Kristoff's shirt, her small timid hands hidden inside the long sleeves of her sweater. A blush spread feverishly over her cheeks._

 _Kristoff laughed and gently pried her out from hiding._

 _"_ _It's okay, Princess. She doesn't bite."_

 _But Anna did bite._

 _Anna was only seven, but she could already see the look in her brother's eyes; basking in the reverie of the pretty girl's stardust._

 _"_ _Y-you're ugly!" The child sputtered loudly at the girl, once again bolting to the safety of her brother's broad back._

 _Anna glared at her, her crinkled brows turning white, but the child's jealousy perished under the guilt ignited by the resilient smile that never left the girl's lovely face. She wondered if anyone could truly be so kind._

The Elsa that she came to know over the years was still personified by that warm, subdued smile. A smile that for all intents, portrayed a pleasing and affable girl, as radiant as a dying star.

"Want a beer?" Hans asked, tossing the flashlight onto the ground as Anna rose and dusted grass off her knees. She handed him the nut wretch, practically slapping it in the palm of his hand.

"My brother's gonna kick your ass if you keep stealing his beers," she warned with a disapproving frown. But then added, "I'll grab us a couple," before she disappeared back into the house.

She hadn't expected the sound of hushed voices or the rustle of fabric when she traipsed her way through the kitchen, pausing mid-step with two sweaty, cold beers in her hands as the voices echoed off the walls of the darkened hallway. A small light flicked on, and two shadows inched their way through the long entryway, refracting as they emerging into the open area of the adjacent living room.

Anna froze.

"We really shouldn't do this here," Elsa gasped, barely managing to speak between Kristoff's unending assault of kisses. His large callused hands enveloped her hips and pulled them firmly against his own, his mouth devouring hers like a starved orphan, unable to satiate his greed.

"Oh, come on, babe," Kristoff whined and silenced her before she could protest further, dipping his tongue deeper into her mouth even as he tugged at the buttons on her blouse, slowly popping one after the other. "Just for a little bit."

Anna watched them from her blackened corner of the kitchen, the stillness of her eyes like the tranquil sea, but the hues of her irises were droplets of petulant oceans, darkening and unforgiving. She was keenly aware of the cold beers in her hands, numbing her fingers and dripping tiny puddles onto the polished wood floors. Every muscle in her body stiffened in her petrified repose. Still, she wouldn't move.

"Your sister could be home any minute now," Elsa breathlessly replied, thinly masking the ire teeming from her voice. She pushed him away, brusquely shedding his embrace, but as she turned away, he captured her from behind, his arms harnessed over her chest like a straight jacket.

"She's probably out with Hans," Kristoff persisted, his lips tracing her neckline, and a hand teased its way across her taut stomach, his fingers slipping under the lacy fabric of his wife's brassiere. She flinched.

"What's taking you so long with those beers?" Hans obnoxiously projected into the house, loudly pushing the backdoor wide open and flicking on the kitchen light.

"Why are you just standing there?" He was quick to notice the condensation dripping down the beer bottles, and the deer-in-headlights look on Anna's face, but it was clear from his perplexed eyes, that he had not seen Kristoff and Elsa.

Anna didn't turn around right away. The moment the lights flooded the kitchen, her eyes had connected with Elsa's. And for a fleeting moment, she glimpsed the girl who had cried endlessly on the night of her engagement, and whose tears had shimmered like silver droplets as her sobs swelled through the church halls outside her bridal room.

She had never hated her more as she had then.

"Oh, Jeez!" Kristoff cried out and he and Elsa quickly scrambled to compose themselves. Elsa moved behind him, stealing one more look at Anna, and concealing her reddening face as she clasped her buttons. Anna had not been blind to Hans' unabashed stare at her brother's wife, a stare he'd held a few seconds too long, and she was certain Kristoff had also noticed. His eyes had hardened as he sized him up.

It was only after Hans excused himself and hurried back outside that Anna realized he'd liberated the beers from her hands.

"Those better not be my beers!" Kristoff shouted after Hans as he swipe his cap from the kitchen counter and ran after him. Then it was just Anna and Elsa, and the awkward silence while Elsa finished clasping the buttons on her shirt.

~X~

"Can you get a good look at the north star with your new telescope?" Elsa had her arms folded over her chest, and her eyes searching the night sky for Polaris. Anna looked up from the eyepiece, regarding her sister-in-law with wonder. The moonlight sheened off her silvery blonde hair, suffusing her lovely face in a warm, effulgent glow.

"It's too far," she replied, trying not to stare. "But I can see the rings of Saturn with it."

"Really?" Elsa sounded like an eager child. The energetic timbre of her voice sent a tiny tremor down Anna's spine, and she was overcome by a nauseating, fluttery tingle.

"I can show it to you if you like."

Elsa looked uncertain. Even at her most inoffensive, Anna always seemed to teeter on the cusp of provocation, set off by the most innocuous of things.

"Do I just look through it?"

Anna moved aside. "Go ahead. Just don't touch it." She didn't mean to stare so long into her eyes, or take notice of the supple curves of her hips and her long ivory legs. She tore her gaze away, anger silently beginning to swell in her chest.

Elsa rounded the large telescope and leaned her head forward, peering through the eyepiece. There was a warmth that was not there before, diffusing from the softness in her eyes; a warmth that rarely materialized in the presence of her husband. The smile that tinged her lips and kindled her eyes were like a betrayal. Whispering the secret that Anna had always known.

The woman that stood before her, the girl with the shimmering blonde hair, and the azure eyes, swimming in waves of sorrow beneath the radiance of that smile, was not in love with Anna's brother. Kristoff could never see it. He'd stopped counting the stars a long time ago, too busy with girls and football for anything else to matter. But Anna could see it, and she hated _her_ for it.

Her hatred was much like a curse prescribed by the stars; authored by a cruel and whimsical universe intent on dramatic irony. Anna, who sought her answers in the celestial sky, who longed for the magic of stardust, and the promise of love, was only just beginning to understand that Polaris was not a glittering distant star, but a girl; a tragic and lonely, stupid girl who did not know the first thing about love.

"I can see why you like the stars so much," Elsa uttered, a yearning weighing down her words. "Up this close, they are beyond compare."

And she was.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ I'm thinking another two chapters for this rather backward story.


	4. Elsa & Anna

_Elsa & Anna_

The picnic was Kristoff's idea, but Anna had been the one to suggest the clearing in Sutter woods near the old fishing pond. It was a short enough hike from the parking lot, and a cool breeze had swept over the hills, making it a pleasant sort of sunny weather. They should have all been making their way to that clearing together, but the boys had forgotten to pack the chips and sandwiches, and dropped the girls off at the edge of the woods to hurry back for the food. Elsa suspected that Kristoff was also eager to fly his rebuilt vintage Mustang down the narrow curves of the hillside without her constantly in his ear, hissing at him to slow down at every turn.

"I guess I'll take the lead," Anna begrudgingly declared, grabbing one end of the ice cooler, waiting for Elsa to take the other as she looked on with indolent eyes. Completely befitting of an irritable teenager.

"You know the way from here?"

"Of course I do. I come here all the time on the weekends."

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Elsa probed, unable to mask the criticism in her voice. She'd heard the infamous stories of Sutter woods when she was still in high school. Teens drinking and skinny dipping in the pond, vomiting from the top of the water tower, parking after hours in the old parking lot overlooking the town. Plenty of girls had lost their v card in that old lot. "I don't think your brother would approve of you and Hans out here all by yourselves."

"I come out here with my _astronomy club_ ," Anna indignantly replied.

"Oh. I just thought-"

"I know what you thought."

"It's not so far-fetched to assume it would be with your boyfriend."

"Well, he's not."

"What?"

"Hans. He's not my boyfriend."

"You two are always together, so I just assumed-"

"You've been doing a lot of that lately," Anna cut her off, suddenly hastening her pace, faster than Elsa could hope to keep up.

"Anna, hold on. Can you _please_ slow down? _Please?_ " The plastic handle of the heavy ice cooler bit into her aching, clenched hands, cutting off the circulation to her fingers. She slowed to a pause as they descended the steep slope to the green grassy clearing, but before she could set down her end, Anna wordlessly jerked it onward, rattling the bottles of beer that filled the cooler.

Elsa lurched forward, tightening her grip, and nearly skidding her way to the bottom.

"Was that really necessary?" She huffed angrily as soon as they came to a stop, a light sheen of perspiration dampening her face.

"Well that's rare," Anna remarked, staring at Elsa with mock curiosity.

"What is?"

"I didn't realize it was possible for the ice queen to get all hot and bothered."

Elsa clenched her jaw, biting back her tart reply, and hoped the boys wouldn't take too long to return. Five minutes alone with the brat, and she already wanted to slap her.

"We should set up the picnic here," she finally spoke, choosing to ignore Anna. "I brought matches and lighter fluid for a fire, but we should probably split up and gather some wood."

 _And just maybe I won't be tempted to strangle her._

 _~X~_

Elsa was nowhere to be seen when Anna returned, sweaty and carrying an armful of dried twigs and branches for the campfire. It didn't appear as if Hans and Kristoff had returned either, but she spied a couple of opened beer bottles on the cooler. _Miss Ice Queen probably got bored and helped herself,_ Anna figured, picking up a half empty bottle with her free hand, taking a long sip. There was a slight peachy taste on her lips when she withdrew it, and Anna remembered the peach flavored lip gloss she had given to Elsa for her birthday last year. It was a cheap thing she'd picked up from the clearance bins at the mall, an afterthought of a gift. The look on Elsa's face when she'd unwrapped it instantly told Anna that her sister-in-law knew what little thought she'd put into it, and Anna always figured Elsa had thrown it away.

Anna bit down on her lip, fighting back the remorse that pestered her thoughts over their last encounter.

 _She's the one who was asking for it._

"Elsa?" She called out as she set down the beer and wandered to the edge of the clearing. "Where'd you go?"

It didn't take long to find her. She was resting on the soft, grassy curve of a small hill, under the shadow of a red maple, in a bed of white clovers. Her hair lay sprawled in waves over fallen leaves, with just enough sunlight peering through the tree branches to cast shimmers of gold through her fair locks.

She looked like an elfin fairy. Or a goddess.

 _Like something out of a dream._

Anna set down the branches on the small pile that Elsa had gathered, and walked over to the elfin figure without uttering a sound, pausing to kneel over her sleeping form. Despite being awake, Anna's actions were dictated by the trance-like dream that had overtaken her the moment she had caught sight of Elsa. The lovely and lonely girl that often haunted her dreams.

In that moment, Anna was much like the seven-year-old child who had first laid eyes on stardust, made manifest in the girl that laid before her. She reached hesitantly for her, pulling her hand away when she got too close, and briefly wondered if stardust burned hot or cold to the touch.

" _Every princess needs a crown_ ," Anna remembered her mother often tell her long before she grew too ill to look after her and Kristoff. Each time, her mother would fashion a flowery crown, strung together with white clovers, and fasten it into Anna's hair.

Wordlessly, Anna plucked a white clover from the grass and carefully fixed the stem into the billowing locks of stardust, hoping that Elsa would not wake. When she did not stir, Anna fastened another in her hair, then another, slowly weaving Elsa's silvery blonde tresses with a flowery crown over her bangs. Once she wended the last white clover into her locks, Anna's body was gripped by an instinctive compulsion.

"Elsa," Anna whispered, leaning in as Elsa slowly stirred awake. Her lashes fluttered open and her sleepy eyes peered up, still insufficiently awake to make sense of the softness in Anna's eyes. Elsa was only beginning to gather her senses when Anna reached for a small tendril of hair and gently pushed it away from the sleepy girl's forehead. Her fingers lingered, softly caressing the contours of Elsa's face, and for the first time since she'd known her, Elsa saw a beautiful untamed creature. And she was drawn to her.

The years of distance between them diminished into nothing as Anna drew in closer, gently tilting Elsa's chin up, and stealing her lips for the very first time. It was tentative at first, lips on lips, soft and fluttery. But Anna pressed deeper, seeking out the wetness of Elsa's mouth, suckling on her timid tongue, until she pried an unchaste whimper from her ravaged lips.

"Do you understand now?" Anna whispered, the heat of her breath teasing Elsa's aroused flesh. "Why Hans could never be my boyfriend?"

Elsa opened her mouth to speak, but she was too stunned by realization to formulate a reply. But her body could still respond, and she reached for her this time, teasing her fingers along the curve of Anna's ear, fluttering them down her neck, then gently tugging at her braids and pulling her in for a second kiss. Even as Anna had her pinned down, it was Elsa who was taking, deepening, and seeking respite in their embrace. It was only when they heard the distant voices of Hans and Kristoff approaching from beyond the clearing that they finally pulled away.

And she was swallowed up by guilt, head first.

"Is there something going on between you two?" Kristoff asked Elsa after they finished their sandwiches. They were watching Anna and Hans bicker as they struggled to set up the bonfire. Just days ago they'd all been gathered in the back yard looking up at the stars, Anna and Hans arguing over the telescope; a moment that resonated much like today. But the world had changed since that day. Or perhaps it was only Elsa who had changed, and the world remained as it always was.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you and Anna."

Elsa tensed and nearly forgot how to breathe, expecting the ground to open up beneath her feet.

"Why would you think something is going on?" She asked, forcing a laugh.

"You've barely spoken a word to each other," he insisted with accusing eyes. "Don't think I haven't noticed. What's the fight about _this time_?"

"It's nothing, really," Elsa said unconvincingly, too relieved to bother dissuading him.

" _Sure_ , it is," he replied with a playful glare, and she couldn't have felt worse.

That evening, as they reminisced and melted marshmallows under the dying sky, Elsa lost herself more than once in Anna's intrepid eyes, falling deeper into a lie that she could not control.

"So your sister hates your wife," Hans drunkenly whispered to an equally inebriated Kristoff, loud enough for Elsa and Anna to hear. "There are worse things in life than that."

The girls looked away, afraid that their transgressions would be exposed by a simple glance. Their eyes would not meet for the rest of the night.


	5. Stardust

Anna couldn't sleep after they returned home that night. Even after her hot shower, she remained restless and unsettled, and could not wash away the guilt that continued to wrack her with every recollection of their shared kiss.

It was the lies she hated the most. Intricate webs spun like a canvass, concealed beneath brush strokes of picturesque landscapes. Anna could not forget the first time she saw the truth, and the anger it bore inside her. She did not bother with reasons or excuses. Lies, she concluded, were black and white, and no amount of wasted breath could ever forgive them.

As simple as it was, her brother couldn't see the lies for what they were, and Anna often wondered if he couldn't or if he simply wouldn't. Elsa had been a beautiful lie that swept into their lives so early on that she had taken on all appearances of truth over time. Perhaps he was too close and was blinded by it.

But Anna saw it. And her stubbornness refused to let it die. Lies were black and white, after all, and there could never be any room for compromise or half-truths.

 _Until that kiss._

Her actions could only have been a lie. A fabrication born from boredom or anger, or maybe from a moment of insanity. _It was an empty kiss_ , she reasoned. _Completely without substance._ And her own physical response had been nothing more than an automated chemical reaction to it. Yet, the more she reasoned, the harder it became to see where the black and white lines were drawn.

The world was no longer divided into binary colors, and Anna wondered when her world began to change. Looking up into the starry sky from her opened bedroom window, she lingered on a memory from years ago; one that whispered her lies to the stars.

~X~

Anna watched her from across the crowded room with the eyes of a petulant teenager. Her lips curled in a decided frown as she bit the inside of her cheek, unable to look away. Streamers and confetti burst and fluttered in the air like gleaming silver snowflakes around her, seemingly floating as they slowly fell to the floor. Drunken party-goers hollered and cheered while the obnoxious shrill of squawkers resounded over Bing Crosby's rendition of _Auld Lang Syne_ , but a distracted Anna could still make out the faint _ping_ sound of champagne glasses clinking together as others toasted to the new year.

And still, she could not tear her eyes away.

 _Stardust_. The word came to her like a soft whisper, resonating in her thoughts, billowing through her like a bundle of nerves, defiant of her own hostility.

She wondered about the first time she laid eyes on Elsa; the pretty girl with shimmering azure eyes who'd stolen away her big brother's heart, and with it all of Kristoff's attention. With a softness and a glow too demure to compare to the blinding candor of the sun. Elsa was more like the moon, her light drawn in by the shadows of unspoken things, things that Anna had decided should not be forgiven. But in the beginning she was like stardust; and Anna glimpsed a vestigial flicker of that starlight in her once again.

And it was maddening.

 _I must be crazy_ , Anna surmised. _I'd have to be._

Every breath, every gesture, down to the innocuous flutter of her eyelashes, was like a spring of stars, and Anna was drawn in, and all her anger with it.

Elsa smiled up at Kristoff as he approached, pressing her hand on his scruffy cheek as he leaned down to take her lips. His hand covered hers and their wedding bands kissed. Anna clenched her jaw, and the crease lines in her frown grew deeper. That feeling came back to her, strange and unknown, it knotted itself in her chest almost painfully as she looked on.

Appearing behind her, Hans leaned forward and uttered something into Anna's ear. She could feel the heat of his breath but his words were lost in the noise that rattled around them, and she mindlessly nodded a reply without bothering to meet his eyes. He startled her by pressing a cold champagne glass into her hand, grinning slyly as she turned to face him with quizzical eyes. Raising a flirtatious brow, he gave her a quick peek of the liquor bottle he'd confiscated into his letterman jacket before zipping it up again.

"For later," he told her, and although Anna still couldn't hear him, she could read the words on his lips. She could also imagine the kind of trouble they were bound for if her brother caught them sneaking drinks. Kristoff was not so flexible with underage drinking, especially when it involved his sixteen year old sister.

Stealing another look across the room, Anna cringed at the way Elsa slid her arms around Kristoff's neck as he drew her onto the dance floor, swaying cheek to cheek. He must have said something funny, because she tilted her head back in laughter.

 _A soft and musical laugh_ , Anna imagined sourly. _As fake as everything else about her._

Silently, and with deep breaths, Anna whispered untruths, hoping to lay her wayward madness to rest. But she could not deny the stardust, and the gravitational pull that left her wanting and empty. An emptiness that demanded her attention, possibly at the bottom of several shot glasses by the end of the night. Watching them kiss once more, it struck her that later couldn't arrive fast enough. That nameless and invisible knot fastened tighter around her chest, and the ache expanded, throbbing and bursting as something inside her shattered into endless bits of shimmering shards.

Just like stardust.

~X~

 _So your sister hates your wife. There are worse things in life than that._

In the weeks that followed since that day at Sutter woods, Anna learned just how worse things could get. It came with a shortness of breath, and prickles on the back of her neck whenever Elsa shared the same air as her. Something had changed. There was a spark in the air between them, ions and atoms colliding without reprieve. And for weeks, it had been unbearable.

She wasn't sixteen anymore, but she wasn't quite an adult either. Legally, she could vote but she couldn't drink. She worked part time while attending her second year of college, but she still lived at home and had never paid a month's rent. She had her own car, but her brother covered her insurance; her phone bill was discounted on their family plan. In the ways that were most apparent, Anna was still a child, down to her twin braided hair and rhinestone decorated bookbag. But the same something that had set change in motion had also taken its hold on her, unraveling her from within and remaking her anew.

Change took shape of desires and expression, and a night came when Anna took those desires and shaped them into words and soft sighs. Elsa should not have been so surprised when it happened.

Anna had her pinned beneath her. Silvery blonde hair spilled in waves over the plush carpet, disheveled and messy in beautiful disarray. Elsa's lips, full and swollen, flushed a bright red. And her eyes were quite wide, even as she struggled to catch her breath.

There had been words. Reckless words. Somehow they had emerged from Anna's mouth, taking shape as their lips met. She had not realized she had spoken them, not until she pulled away and saw them take form in Elsa's startled eyes. She couldn't imagine why she's uttered them. Lips easily told untruths.

But the words, as reckless and unexpected as they were, did not feel like a lie. And it scared her.

Anna trembled, seized by the knot in her chest, the aching throb that finally had a name. It should have come to her as no surprise, but its truth impaled her with realization. And she knew there would be no turning back when Elsa whispered them back, her lips grazing along the length of her neck, before Anna stole her breath with another kiss.


End file.
